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"Can it, then, be thought improbable ... that other variations
useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life,
should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations?
If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born
than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight,
over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind?
On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation that is in the least degree
injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favoured variations, and the rejection of injurious variations, I call natural selection." |
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Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species..., p. 80-81. |
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"We have seen that man by selection can certainly produce great results, and can adapt organic beings to his own uses, through the accumulation of slight but useful variations, given to him by the hand of Nature. But Natural Selection ... is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts as the works of Nature are to those of Art." |
| Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species..., p. 61. |